Back to the complete issue
Friday, 3 February 2017

The Entrepreneur Life

We love the budding local startup scene, but entrepreneurship cliches and self-proclaimed entrepreneurs can be, well, very annoying, to be polite about it. Satirist JP Sears nails it with his impression of an “entrepreneur” talking about his Entrepreneur Life. The entrepreneur talks about himself and his business, saying “my favorite question to ask people is the only question I know how to ask people: How’ve you monetized that?” On his business, he says: “All you really need to know is I’m in tech, the business of innovation… I’m expecting the valuation of my startup to come in north of a hundred mn. How much revenue has my company earned? We haven’t earned any revenue. I just raise capital.” One gem of advice he gives: “Failing forward is not only what I aim for it is essential for entrepreneurs. I learned so much more than if I were succeeding. When disasters happen in business I know how to proclaim ‘I’m failing forward,’ that turns my failures into automatic success and those successes are exactly what helps me disrupt the market” (runtime 05:40).

Enterprise is a daily publication of Enterprise Ventures LLC, an Egyptian limited liability company (commercial register 83594), and a subsidiary of Inktank Communications. Summaries are intended for guidance only and are provided on an as-is basis; kindly refer to the source article in its original language prior to undertaking any action. Neither Enterprise Ventures nor its staff assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy of the information contained in this publication, whether in the form of summaries or analysis. © 2022 Enterprise Ventures LLC.

Enterprise is available without charge thanks to the generous support of HSBC Egypt (tax ID: 204-901-715), the leading corporate and retail lender in Egypt; EFG Hermes (tax ID: 200-178-385), the leading financial services corporation in frontier emerging markets; SODIC (tax ID: 212-168-002), a leading Egyptian real estate developer; SomaBay (tax ID: 204-903-300), our Red Sea holiday partner; Infinity (tax ID: 474-939-359), the ultimate way to power cities, industries, and homes directly from nature right here in Egypt; CIRA (tax ID: 200-069-608), the leading providers of K-12 and higher level education in Egypt; Orascom Construction (tax ID: 229-988-806), the leading construction and engineering company building infrastructure in Egypt and abroad; Moharram & Partners (tax ID: 616-112-459), the leading public policy and government affairs partner; Palm Hills Developments (tax ID: 432-737-014), a leading developer of commercial and residential properties; Mashreq (tax ID: 204-898-862), the MENA region’s leading homegrown personal and digital bank; Industrial Development Group (IDG) (tax ID:266-965-253), the leading builder of industrial parks in Egypt; Hassan Allam Properties (tax ID:  553-096-567), one of Egypt’s most prominent and leading builders; and Saleh, Barsoum & Abdel Aziz (tax ID: 220-002-827), the leading audit, tax and accounting firm in Egypt.